In today's Gazette: Parking charges slashed

7:53am Wednesday 20th February 2013 in News

In today's Gazette: The cost of parking in Colchester town centre has been cut to give traders a boost.

Colchester Council has slashed all day fees at Middleborough car park from £6 to £3.50.

* Little Nancy Ann Jeans has shown she has big talent after bagging a role in the West End musical Once.

Nancy Ann, who is seven and lives in Upland Drive, Colchester, will play a character called Ivanka, daughter of the leading lady.

* A restaurant chain is interested in opening in the former JJB sports store in Colchester High Street.

* The £3 million lottery prize has been claimed by a winner in Tendring.

For more on these and other great stories, see today's Gazette. There is always more in the paper than there is online.

Comments(28)

Ritchie_Hicks says...
9:10am Wed 20 Feb 13

Parking charges slashed - too little, too late.

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jeffbridges says...
10:42am Wed 20 Feb 13

agree 100%

coupled with the front page news to all who maybe wished to visit colchester that no cars are welcomed.
Its a strange course of predicting the future of the town as,
we dont want cars, but cars can still pay to park.

strange, very strange way of doing things for its business community.

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angryman!!! says...
10:43am Wed 20 Feb 13

bore off, you'll prob moan that parkings now to cheap and will cause congestion

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angryman!!! says...
10:52am Wed 20 Feb 13

yes having pedestrianised high st's are really crazy ideas, youd never see any other town doing that.......no because pretty much every town has already done it, the high st, already has lots of restaurant's and bars if this is done properly and not halfassed this would then encourage more decent establishments to open and in turn reduce the dangerous nightlife which most readers on here seem to think is like down town Kingston or Kabul

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roger bacon says...
12:15pm Wed 20 Feb 13

CBC get in line with TDC and make parking free for the locals. Why are you so slow on the uptake.
Much more than this is needed to save the town centre.
Councils that have car parking charges are saying do not come into our town centre. Keep out. Verboten!

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25414nora says...
12:37pm Wed 20 Feb 13

half price £3.50 at middleborough multi story car park, A most under used facility, and no wonder..To get to the town centre you'll need oxygen to trek up north hill, and a pack horse to return to the car with all the shopping..No thanks.

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jammin says...
1:20pm Wed 20 Feb 13

Pedestrianise the High Street, make Headstreet, Osbourne Street and Queen Street two way. Problem solved.

Queen street will be a bit dangerous for pedestrians but who uses it anyway especially now everyone will be on the High Street???!!!

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wellnow says...
1:58pm Wed 20 Feb 13

The proposal seems more aimed at visitor shoppers rather than colcestrians.who living here would describe middlebough as town center.l would think a 2 hr free period in all car parks would stimulate town shopping rather than longer periods of stay.l would also say that the last car park l would pick would be middlborough, for reasons stated elsewhere.

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Say It As It Is OK? says...
1:59pm Wed 20 Feb 13

25414nora wrote:
half price £3.50 at middleborough multi story car park, A most under used facility, and no wonder..To get to the town centre you'll need oxygen to trek up north hill, and a pack horse to return to the car with all the shopping..No thanks.
Okay not in favour of closing the High Street but agree Middlesborough car park is not well placed as a shoppers car park.

Think out of the box and introduce a subsidised bus, (on presentation of a car park ticket) that runs between Middlesborough and town because few would use any of the service buses that go up North Hill and pay the standard bus fare on top of paying to park.

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Reginald47 says...
2:02pm Wed 20 Feb 13

I'd love to know whose going to pay for the security and upkeep of 'free' car parks - Mr Bacon perhaps.

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angryman!!! says...
2:11pm Wed 20 Feb 13

oh my god know wonder why there's an obesity crisis when walking up a hill in east Anglia (one of the flattest counties in the country)

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TheCaptain says...
3:21pm Wed 20 Feb 13

Reginald47 wrote:
I'd love to know whose going to pay for the security and upkeep of 'free' car parks - Mr Bacon perhaps.
well all of us including those who never use them. great suggestion not. also that would close ncp car parks are they can't compete putting people out of work and reducing spaces

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TheCaptain says...
3:23pm Wed 20 Feb 13

Say It As It Is OK? wrote:
25414nora wrote:
half price £3.50 at middleborough multi story car park, A most under used facility, and no wonder..To get to the town centre you'll need oxygen to trek up north hill, and a pack horse to return to the car with all the shopping..No thanks.
Okay not in favour of closing the High Street but agree Middlesborough car park is not well placed as a shoppers car park.

Think out of the box and introduce a subsidised bus, (on presentation of a car park ticket) that runs between Middlesborough and town because few would use any of the service buses that go up North Hill and pay the standard bus fare on top of paying to park.
This car park is aimed at all day parking. Mainly for people working so carrying shopping no a worry and there is a lots of employment close by.

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roger bacon says...
3:39pm Wed 20 Feb 13

Reginald47 wrote:
I'd love to know whose going to pay for the security and upkeep of 'free' car parks - Mr Bacon perhaps.
IF Tendring can do it ,why cannot Colchester.?
So who pays for the upkeep of the roads because we do not pay for those either!!

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TheCaptain says...
4:05pm Wed 20 Feb 13

roger bacon wrote:
Reginald47 wrote:
I'd love to know whose going to pay for the security and upkeep of 'free' car parks - Mr Bacon perhaps.
IF Tendring can do it ,why cannot Colchester.?
So who pays for the upkeep of the roads because we do not pay for those either!!
Why should people who don't use the car parks pay for their upkeep?

We do all you use the roads though. So seems fair that we all pay for them.

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romantic says...
5:21pm Wed 20 Feb 13

jammin wrote:
Pedestrianise the High Street, make Headstreet, Osbourne Street and Queen Street two way. Problem solved.

Queen street will be a bit dangerous for pedestrians but who uses it anyway especially now everyone will be on the High Street???!!!
I´ve thought of that option before, and it would solve the issue of routing the buses down the High St. Top end of Queen Street would be the problem, as it is too narrow, and might need to be controlled with traffic lights to allow one direction at a time.

But it all has to go hand in hand with a properly functioning park and ride and subsidised buses, so that more people can switch over to public transport.

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dean coulson says...
7:14pm Wed 20 Feb 13

does the councils right hand know what the left hand is doing? they remove the carpark at colchester town station, then they remove the butt road carpark, then boast there helping out our struggling traders with cheaper carpark fees, stop taking our carparks for a pointless court building when a lick of paint would have been good enough on the old courts, if they wish to help out traders make it easy to access the town

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dean coulson says...
7:14pm Wed 20 Feb 13

does the councils right hand know what the left hand is doing? they remove the carpark at colchester town station, then they remove the butt road carpark, then boast there helping out our struggling traders with cheaper carpark fees, stop taking our carparks for a pointless court building when a lick of paint would have been good enough on the old courts, if they wish to help out traders make it easy to access the town

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Red Tape 2 says...
9:17pm Wed 20 Feb 13

dean coulson wrote:
does the councils right hand know what the left hand is doing? they remove the carpark at colchester town station, then they remove the butt road carpark, then boast there helping out our struggling traders with cheaper carpark fees, stop taking our carparks for a pointless court building when a lick of paint would have been good enough on the old courts, if they wish to help out traders make it easy to access the town
Of course they don't. They make it up as they go along - which is why they seem totally clueless!

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Justice79 says...
8:41am Thu 21 Feb 13

angryman!!! wrote:
oh my god know wonder why there's an obesity crisis when walking up a hill in east Anglia (one of the flattest counties in the country)
I was unaware that the ease as to which one can climb a hill was directly linked to the topography of the region the hill was in.

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TheCaptain says...
8:56am Thu 21 Feb 13

dean coulson wrote:
does the councils right hand know what the left hand is doing? they remove the carpark at colchester town station, then they remove the butt road carpark, then boast there helping out our struggling traders with cheaper carpark fees, stop taking our carparks for a pointless court building when a lick of paint would have been good enough on the old courts, if they wish to help out traders make it easy to access the town
Well the car park at the station was closed to build the court. The Council were forced to sell this land.

Butt Road was military land and so the car park was temporary pending the sale to developers.

So no choice on both of them. You make it sound as if the decision to build the courts was a council one, Wrong.

And of course you haven't mentioned the new car park in Napier Road.

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Arthur Fonzarelli says...
11:44am Thu 21 Feb 13

Middleborough car park used to be
full of Royal London Employees, most of which had no problem walking up North Hill to spend their money. But like many other large companies were eventually priced out of Colchester by massive rates.....ghost town!

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Boris says...
11:12pm Thu 21 Feb 13

TheCaptain wrote:
roger bacon wrote:
Reginald47 wrote:
I'd love to know whose going to pay for the security and upkeep of 'free' car parks - Mr Bacon perhaps.
IF Tendring can do it ,why cannot Colchester.?
So who pays for the upkeep of the roads because we do not pay for those either!!
Why should people who don't use the car parks pay for their upkeep?

We do all you use the roads though. So seems fair that we all pay for them.
You are right, Captain. Roger is very sound when he writes about supermarkets, but he is wrong on this one. Just because Tendring people are happy to pay for free parking for others, why should we? People who can afford to run a car can afford to pay to park it. People can argue about how much they should pay, but not about the principle.

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Smouldering Ewok says...
8:52pm Fri 22 Feb 13

25414nora wrote:
half price £3.50 at middleborough multi story car park, A most under used facility, and no wonder..To get to the town centre you'll need oxygen to trek up north hill, and a pack horse to return to the car with all the shopping..No thanks.
I would have taken the same attitude back when i was driving.
Now that i am a pedestrian North Hill is a breeze.
Thinking about it is harder than actually doing it.
We thought we would never cope not having a car but actually things are much better without one.

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Johnny T says...
9:28pm Fri 22 Feb 13

Is there still people out there that can still afford to run a car.

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roger bacon says...
10:25am Sat 23 Feb 13

Boris wrote:
TheCaptain wrote:
roger bacon wrote:
Reginald47 wrote:
I'd love to know whose going to pay for the security and upkeep of 'free' car parks - Mr Bacon perhaps.
IF Tendring can do it ,why cannot Colchester.?
So who pays for the upkeep of the roads because we do not pay for those either!!
Why should people who don't use the car parks pay for their upkeep?

We do all you use the roads though. So seems fair that we all pay for them.
You are right, Captain. Roger is very sound when he writes about supermarkets, but he is wrong on this one. Just because Tendring people are happy to pay for free parking for others, why should we? People who can afford to run a car can afford to pay to park it. People can argue about how much they should pay, but not about the principle.
As an advocate of free parking in town centre car parks , for over 20 years,, I am certain this is the only way to go. The success of Tendring DC scheme has not gone unnoticed as it looks like Suffolk County Council are going to adopt the same idea as headlined in today's EADT.
My ideal plan is for town centre car parks should be free for the first hour which would give people time to shop. Any time after this would be charged say 60 pence per hour . The problem of having free car parks all the time is that they will eventually get clogged up. With payment after hour this will keep a rotation of cars arriving and leaving all the time.
I first saw this system in operation in Weymouth 25 years ago and it was a revelation at the time This is the way forward.

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Goonerboy says...
1:41pm Sat 23 Feb 13

The first step should be to make them advertise the prices before you go into the car park rather than a scrappy bit of A4 paper on an office door and then display the prices for all to read after you go through the barrier

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jeffbridges says...
11:18pm Sun 24 Feb 13

TDC residents have a council issued free parking permit for use in most of its car parks.
It was bugeted for in this financial years accounts at TDC.

A thankyou is in order of the day as TDC covers such a wide area of residents, some so very close to CBC`s remit.
Shame we cant use them in CBC car parks.

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